KNOX — A speed-limit reduction felt like a hollow victory in Knox after the state determined that speed Old Stage Road may not be reduced from 55 to 30 miles-per-hour, but instead to 40. A request to lower the speed limit on Pleasant Valley Road was denied, and another request on Craven Road had yet to be returned, according to Knox Supervisor Vasilios Lefkaditis.

Bryan Viggiani, a spokesman for the New York State Department of Transportation, confirmed that the speed limit on Old Stage Road between routes 156 and 157 will be reduced to 40 miles-per-hour following a speed review.

One of the questions raised at Knox’s town board meeting on Oct. 9 was why there were road signs that already indicated that drivers should be traveling at 30 miles-per-hour.

“Do we have to change it now?,” asked Supervisor Vasilios Lefkaditis. “Because they told us 40 — remember they moved them to 30.”

“I thought we were approved to 30?” asked Councilman Dennis Barber.

“No, that was a conversation that took place last year … ,” said Lefkaditis. “So, let me refresh your memory … We had a conversation, and because there were residents here and police reports, and all sorts of activities, John said we needed to post 30 miles-per-hour because we were liable. Gary said ‘I can’t do that, it’s unlawful,’” said Lefkaditis, referring to John Dorfman, the former town attorney, who resigned at the end of 2017, and highway Superintendent Gary Salisbury.

Dorfman and Lefkaditis had frequently been at odds. Lefkaditis twice tried to replace Dorfman as the town’s attorney and finally succeeded when his running mates were elected to the town board.

“Gary’s right,” said current town attorney Javid Afzali.

“Correct,” said Lefkaditis. “But it went back and forth, and basically the board said ‘Look, just do it, post it,’ and John said we were well within our right because, something to the effect of the fact we’ve been put on notice, etcetera, etcetera. So that’s how the 30 went up. We do have to change that.”

Salisbury told The Enterprise on Wednesday that this was correct, and that he put up the 30-mile-per-hour signs after being instructed by Dorfman to do so. He said he has now ordered 40-mile-per-hour signs to be put in their place.

“I would never recommend that any sign be put up that isn’t in the legal jurisdiction of the town,” Dorfman told The Enterprise on Wednesday in response to the comments. He clarified that, at the meeting in question, he had been referring to yellow speed-reduction warning signs, and later added that he would not have had the authority, as the town attorney, to instruct Salisbury to act on anything.

At the Nov. 8, 2017 town board meeting, according to the official meeting minutes, Dorfman said that the town would need to act immediately since the board had been presented by resident Jeff Thomas with an accident report from a crash on Old Stage Road and the town had been “put on notice” and could be liable. Dorfman suggested that warning signs be put up, the minutes say, with Salisbury replying that yellow speed-reduction signs were being ordered and would be put up right away.

At that same 2017 meeting, the town board had unanimously voted to authorize Lefkaditis to request that the speed limit on Old Stage Road be reduced from 55 to 30 miles-per-hour as well as authorize Salisbury to install “Children at Play” signs on the road, according to the minutes. The board also unanimously agreed to have the supervisor request that the speed limit on Craven Road be reduced to 35 miles per hour.

A safety issue?

“I think that it’s going to significantly change how people drive down that road,” said town zoning board Chairman Douglas Roether at the Oct. 9 meeting, of the speed limit on Old Stage Road being posted as 40 miles-per-hour.

“I agree, but it’s out of our hands,” said Lefkaditis.

Councilman Earl Barcomb said a “nuclear option” would be to make a section of Old Stage Road a dead end. He said that the best way to change the speed limit would be to lobby to change the state law that excludes small towns from being able to change the speed limits on their roads.

Cities and towns defined as suburban or towns with populations of 50,000 or more may set their own speed limits, said Viggiani. Other towns must adopt a resolution before the state goes through a series of reviews and approvals to lower the speed limit of a road.

“In light of what happened in Schoharie … ,” said Roether, referring to the limousine accident that killed 20 people and the intersection where it occurred. “This is what it takes.”

David Orr, the director of the Cornell Local Roads Program at Cornell University, said the process for a small town to reduce a road’s speed limit can begin either with a petition from residents of a town or a request endorsed by the town supervisor, town council, or a highway superintendent. The request then has to be endorsed by the county highway superintendent or department of public works commissioner before it is sent to the state to be reviewed.

The process can last anywhere from six weeks to four months, Orr said.

According to Viggiani, the speed-limit reduction in Knox was determined following a speed review. But Orr recommends that town residents petition not only for a speed limit but also for a safety review of the road in question, because the speed limit and safety of a road may not always be directly correlated.

According to Orr, some of the factors that can make a road unsafe outside of the speed limit can be things like the width of the road (a wider road usually leads to motorists driving faster), the walking conditions, intersections, and whether a motorists has to accelerate (which can give the perception to passersby that a driver is traveling at a higher speed).

“Just lowering the speed limit, especially if it cannot be enforced, may not solve the issue,” Orr said.

Even if the speed limit is reduced, said Orr, drivers may continue driving faster if the road conditions allow them to. He added that posting police should only be used as a last resort.

Such solutions to road safety may depend on the location of the roadway, but can include reviewing the signs there, and “traffic calming” or employing methods like roundabouts, stoplights, speed humps, and bulbouts into the road to encourage slower and safer driving, said Orr.

Other business

The board also:

— Unanimously voted to adopt new standard operating procedures for the town transfer station, which would include new safety training, reducing the number of workers on certain days, and placing Salisbury, who is also the deputy supervisor, in charge of the workers;

— Briefly discussed establishing a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes for the solar company Borrego, which is building solar arrays in Knox;

— Approved a fee schedule of $300, increasing $150 per year, for violators of a recently established blight law;

— Approved joining Albany County’s hazardous mitigation plan in order to qualify for federal aid in the event of a future emergency;

— Discussed creating a 30-hour-a-week part-time position that would have an employee do the jobs currently performed by half-a-dozen different part-time workers, with the salary of $28,500 equal to the part-time workers he or she would replace, according to the supervisor;

— Discussed creating hiring committees for positions such as dog-control officer, which have remained empty since the beginning of the year. The town has been using Cheryl Baitsholts, the dog control officer for Berne and Rensselaerville, on a temporary basis;

— Heard from Roether that he would like to have representatives from the New York State Energy Research and Development Agency speak on Oct. 30 at the town hall about the community choice aggregation program, which would allow the town to lower its energy bill by using renewable energy sources;

— Heard from the planning board chairman, Thomas Wolfe, that the board is working on a list of excused absences in relation to a new law that would allow the dismissal of board members if they miss too many meetings; and

— Recognized town clerk Diane Champion, who was celebrating her 70th birthday that night. The supervisor said that Champion was to present a report to the board, Champion, who was knitting while observing the meeting from the back row, said she was not aware of this before a slide was brought up on the projector wishing her happy birthday.